 Hello, and welcome to Music and More, where we discuss great music with great musicians while having a lot of fun. My name is Elliot Moore, and I'm the conductor of the Longmont Symphony Orchestra. We have got a wonderful show lined up for you today. We're going to be performing for you the finale from Tchaikovsky's violin concerto, as well as talking with the soloist from that performance, Sharon Rothman. And of course, I'll also be taking your questions. But first, I thought that we would continue taking a closer look at how a conductor studies a score in preparation for a performance. Once I have done one hour of background research into the work that I'll be conducting, I always number my measures. I put bar numbers in the left-hand margin of the score, as well as I circle bar numbers which are multiples of five, so five, 10, 15, 20, et cetera. Here we go. So why do I do this? If I am rehearsing the orchestra, and I need to refer to a bar number very quickly, I never have to count forwards or backwards more than three bars, and that can really speed up my rehearsing. One other thing that it's very useful for is in score study. So if I am studying a score, and at the beginning of the work there's a very similar passage to something that occurs at the end of the work, it allows me to compare these bars very, very quickly and reference the bars very quickly. Once I have numbered my bars, I then look at the left-hand margins of the beginning of each of the movements. Let's begin by having a look at Beethoven's first symphony. I always begin by looking at the instrumentation of each movement, and by making sure that I understand what it says. For example, there are two flutes in the first movement, even pairs of winds, horns, and trumpets with timpani and strings. The clarinets are in C, and the horns are in C as well. Then I look at all of the other movements. Here is the instrumentation page of the second movement. Here is the instrumentation of the third movement. And here is the instrumentation of the fourth movement. So what is it that I'm looking for? What I'm looking for is to see if all of the instruments play in all of the movements. Let's take a closer look, shall we? If we look here at the second movement at the flute, it is listed as just flauto. That is singular in Italian, while oboi is plural. This means that there is only one flute in this movement. So what? Big deal, you say. Well it is a big deal if you are the second flutist, and here's the reason why. It's because while the conductor and the orchestra are rehearsing that second movement for one hour, you're sitting there not playing a single note, feeling as though you've been forgotten about. And that doesn't seem very respectful of your time now, does it? Couldn't the conductor have altered the rehearsal schedule so that that player's time could have been better respected? Absolutely. That is in fact why I always write down on the instrumentation page at the very beginning of the score if there are instruments that don't play in all of the movements. As an example with the second movement of the Beethoven first symphony, I would rehearse that last so that I could allow that second flute player to go home early. I'm sure they would have appreciated that. Also when I see the horns in C, I need to know that these are transposing instruments. Horns in C actually sound down lower, one octave than they're written, and so I will indicate that also in my score. The next thing that I do is mark the phrase lengths of the music. Now this is not objective. Two conductors may do this two totally different ways, and in some ways that's beautiful because it may give two very different performances, and in this way we know that music really is an art and not a science. There's no one definitive answer for a phrase length. For this, it's really great to have a pencil, a straight edge, and an eraser. So what I do is I make a mark down all of the systems to indicate that it's a beginning or an end of a phrase, like so. The score that I will be marking the phrase indications for is Beethoven's Seventh Symphony. Now this is a score that I have studied several times, but I managed to lose my copy of it, and so I got a new copy, but that's all okay, and I'll tell you the reason why it's because I know that I will be seeing this incredible musical work with fresh eyes. I've now marked the phrase indications to Beethoven's Seventh Symphony for about the first 100 bars. Here's what that looks like. Herr Beethoven! Tell me Herr Beethoven, did I understand your phrase lengths okay? I was a little worried about that one deceptive cadence, I wasn't sure I got it right. You can discuss that later, but I want to discuss, is tempo? Don't you think you could have thought about my tempo indications, or perhaps my metronome markings before you thought about all of this phrasing? That's a very good point, but there's so much controversy surrounding your metronome markings. What controversies could there possibly be? Some people think that your metronome was faulty, some people think that your metronome was broken, we don't know what to believe. Should we just simply throw out all of your metronome indications because maybe your metronome was broken? Maestro, can you please beat 60 beats per minute for me? 60 beats per minute? Oh, that's the exact same as a second hand on my watch. Let's see, that's about... Good. Now, can you please clap twice as fast for me? Well sure I can. This must be 120 beats per minute if it's twice faster than 60. Exactly! And did you honestly think that I, Herr Beethoven, did not know how fast one second was? Herr Beethoven, but if your metronome was off, how could you have heard it? I hate to state the obvious, but you were deaf. I don't know how you would have heard if it was right or wrong. And I hate to state the obvious, too! In my day, metronomes were not apps on your phone, but rather they were little boxes and they had a pendulum arm and they went tick, tock, tick, tock, tick, tock, tock, and I am not blind, I was merely deaf, so I could see it. But Herr Beethoven, sometimes you pick a tempo which is just so fast and other times you pick a tempo which is so slow, I mean isn't it possible that just maybe your metronome was broken? Well, it was not broken in both directions. It wasn't like sometimes I decide to go too fast, sometimes I decide to go too slow. No, no, no, no, no, that is nonsense. It can only be broken in one direction, don't you think? And also, it seems as though so many conductors, they would like to think that Beethoven's tempi were crazy, because like that it now suits their every whim. But the slow movement of your seventh symphony, clearly you wanted that to be slow. I mean it's so beautiful and haunting when I take it with that slow tempo. Look at the tempo indication for the first movement. Quarter note equals 69. Now look at the second movement tempo, the one that goes so slow. What is indicated there? Quarter note equals 76. Exactly, now don't you think that even if my metronome were broken, I knew that 69 was slower than 76. And if I wanted it to be a funeral march, I would have marked it a funeral march, but instead I marked it alegretto, meaning a little lively with the quarter note equals 76, not slower than the very opening of the symphony. Wait, so the slowest part of the seventh symphony is not the slow movement at all, it's actually the opening of the symphony? Precisely, there is no slow movement in my seventh symphony. I can't wait to continue chatting with Herr Beethoven about his fascinating tempo indications, his metronome markings. It's really great stuff, but we're going to have to leave it there for the time being. Now we're going to turn to a performance of Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto from 2019. Tchaikovsky wrote this violin concerto in Clairhon, Switzerland on the shores of Lake Geneva where Tchaikovsky had gone to recover from the depression brought on by his disastrous marriage. The couple only lived together for 11 days and their marriage was over in two and a half months. Tchaikovsky went on a long voyage to try and recover from this disastrous marriage where he spent an extended stay in Switzerland, struggling to compose a solo piano work. Fortunately, one of his former students from Russia, a violinist and composer, Josef Kutek, came to visit him. Kutek took out his violin and the two played works by other composers for violin and piano. Tchaikovsky began to fancy the idea of writing a concerto for violin and orchestra. Tchaikovsky worked exceptionally quickly and the music seemed to flow from his pen onto the page and he felt as though he was regaining his artistic inspiration. The third movement of Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto begins with this cry from the orchestra and that's followed by solo violin playing and that solo violin playing I think is very important. It's almost as though kind of a Russian gypsy violinist comes onto the stage with the orchestra and begins playing in such a way that inspires the orchestra to be much more festive than the kind of cry that opened that movement. Well here is our 2019 performance with Sharon Rothman and of course stick around because we're going to be chatting about all kinds of things with Sharon following this performance. Well now I am joined by my dear friend and esteemed colleague, Sharon Rothman. Sharon are you there? Thanks so much for joining us Sharon, wow I have to say that was such a great performance that we had together of Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto. Of course everyone here just watched the finale of that. Where are you joining us from? I'm in my home in Paris right now in France. That's phenomenal. How long have you lived in Paris? On and Off since 2009. Oh it's such a beautiful city, I'm sure you love it right? It's an amazing city, yeah I love it. Who doesn't love Paris? Who doesn't love Paris? Well there was one thing since we all just watched your performance of Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto, there is one thing that in fact none of us knew at that point which was that you were expecting, in fact you didn't even know that you were expecting at that point. So I wanted to ask, I wanted to ask how is your son doing? What's his name? When was he born? My son he's awesome, his name is Lucas. He was born on December 11th and it's funny because I was just thinking about this recently when I was practicing for playing with you guys and actually during the performance I remember thinking like, wow I must be getting old because I'm tired, this is tiring to play this concerto and so I was relieved to find out later that it's not just that I'm getting old that I was really pregnant so that was, I had a good reason for being tired. That's good, well for what it's worth you were also playing at 5,200 feet so that can also tire people out so. And do you have a photo of Lucas? I do, I've got about a zillion photos of him but I'll pick out a good one to show you guys. Here you go. Oh he is so adorable, wow. He's pretty cute, I have to say. So tell me are you still concertmaster of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra? I am, yeah I am and actually I was just feeling badly that I said that I live in Paris because it's not 100% true, I split my time between Paris and Glasgow where I play with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and I'm extremely proud to be a member of that orchestra, it's an amazing orchestra and an amazing organization and I love it. Ask you about kind of what your job entails there and if you have a favorite part of your job. Well yeah I'm about to go back to work, I'm going to start working on October 19th so I actually have to go on October 4th so that I can quarantine for two weeks before I go back to work. I'm really interested in leadership, I'm really interested in how to get people to do their best, I have enormous amount of respect for my colleagues so we all sort of do things together. I was actually just reading about how you led this performance of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony and at the end of the performance, instead of everyone sort of just standing up and maybe you take a bow because you were kind of the leader of that, you had everyone come into a line at the front of the stage and everyone took a bow and so that was that kind of shared leadership that you were just mentioning. Exactly yeah that was one of my absolute favorite concerts of the year, like I loved that, it was an incredible experience and that's exactly what I mean. I think as the leader of that particular concert, so that concert was without a conductor so we played Beethoven's Fifth without a conductor and so I had a position of responsibility but what my feeling was was that I set down an interpretation because you can't just come with nothing because then it's chaotic. So I came with a vision but then it becomes a democratic process and everybody from the front to the back every instrument has a chance and I want them to participate so it really became like a huge chamber music rehearsal and I think my job is to just make sure that the pacing of the rehearsal and everything keeps going that we don't get bogged down or this and that and you know sort of to be a manager but to let people speak and let people have their voices and let people have their ideas and try and find a way to put all those things together to make something cohesive. We are going to move now to our lightning round so here are some quick questions. When did you know that you wanted to be a professional violinist? When I realized that that question was stupid so I remember someone say I remember when I realized that like there was no other choice for me. Where did you study the violin? Well I grew up outside of New York City then I went to Los Angeles for two years then I went to Cleveland for four years and then I came back to New York City. And who were your main violin teachers in all those places? My first violin teacher was Nicole DiCecco who I owe all of my great foundation to. Then I studied with Peter Winograd, first violinist of the American string quartet who really inspired me to love music. Adi Kopeck for a little while who helped me develop a nice bow hold. Then Robert Lipset in Los Angeles who was just taught me how to practice taught me how to listen. He was just an incredible teacher. Then Donald Wilerstein who's just a poet and taught me everything about artistry. And then Itzhak Roman who of course is amazing. How much do you practice each day? Ooh, before Lucas or after Lucas? Well that's a great question. Go ahead and answer both. Before I had a baby I would say I practiced between three and seven hours a day. Now it's like it's an amazing thing if I can get in two hours, one hour is great, ten minutes is like usually what I could get in during a day. Fair enough. Okay so now we are going to move on to a game which is called How Well Do We Know Each Other? Okay. So I've written down some questions and you have to answer them. How old were we when we met? I would say that maybe we were 14 or 15, 14? All right good. All right we'll count that as a yes. All right you have a question for me. Yes. What is, because we were roommates you have to tell your audience that. Okay we were roommates. This question won't make sense. We were roommates back in the day. What is my least favorite household task? Picking out the garbage. Awesome. Okay good good all right. Now I'm moving on. My turn. What's your nickname for me? Dude. Awesome. All right. In what town were we roommates? In Cleveland. All right. Your turn. What's the first thing I have to do in the day or I can't go on? Coffee. Exactly. All right. What was your favorite thing about living with me? I would say cooking dinners and drinking, drinking wine. Sharon you're not doing very well here. I would take out the trash even you knew that one. All right. Well listen Sharon thank you so much and now everyone we are going to be moving on to the question and answer session with me at the end of this episode. To relax I love to go fishing and generally be in nature. Another thing I like to do is walk my dogs. 1945 that was the end of the second world war. My superpower? I think that would have to be my ability to get a room to be hushed with my eyes. I love the sound of my 10 month old daughter talking to herself. It's so adorable. What don't I like to do? I think one of the hardest things for me to do is wake up early. I'm not very good at getting out of bed really early in the morning. Thanks so much for sending in those questions keep them coming and we'll see you next time on Music and More.